History of Greece Volume 2: Grecian History to the Reign of Pisistratus at Athens

By George Grote

History of Greece Volume 2: Grecian History to the Reign of Pisistratus at Athens, is part two of George Grotes epic history of Greece.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Charles River Editors
• Release date: Mar 22, 2018
• ISBN: 9781614303275

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CHAPTER I. GENERAL GEOGRAPHY AND LIMITS OF GREECE.

GREECE Proper lies between the 36th and 40th parallels of north latitude, and between the 21st and 26th degrees of east longitude. Its greatest length, from Mount Olympus to Cape Taenarus, may be stated at 250 English miles; its greatest breadth, from the western coast of Acarnania to Marathon in Attica, at 180 miles; and the distance eastward from Ambracia across Pindus to the Magnesian mountain Homole and the mouth of the Peneus is about 120 miles. Altogether, its area is somewhat less than that of Portugal. In regard, however, to all attempts at determining the exact limits of Greece proper, we may remark, first, that these limits seem not to have been very precisely defined even among the Greeks themselves; and next, that so large a proportion of the Hellens were distributed among islands and colonies, and so much of their influence upon the world in general produced through their colonies, as to render the extent of their original domicile a matter of comparatively little moment to verify.

Thermaic, Ambratian Gulfs and Epirus

The chain called Olympus and the Cambunian mountains, ranging from east and west, and commencing with the Aegean sea or the gulf of Therma, near the 40th degree of north latitude, is prolonged under the name of Mount Lingon, until it touches the Adriatic at the Akrokeraunian promontory. The country south of this chain comprehended all that in ancient times was regarded as Greece, or Hellas proper, but it also comprehended something more. Hellas proper, (or continuous Hellas, to use the language of Skylax and Dikaearchus) was understood to begin with the town and gulf of Ambrakia : from thence, northward to the Akrokeraunian promontory, lay the land called by the Greeks Epirus,—occupied by the Chaonians, Molossians, and Thesprotians, who were termed Epirots, and were not esteemed to belong to the Hellenic aggregate. This at least was the general understanding, though Aetolians and Acarnanians, in their more distant sections, seem to have been not less widely removed from the full type of Hellenism than the Epirots were; while Herodotus is inclined to treat even Molossians and Thesprotians as Hellens.

At a point about midway between the Aegean and Ionian seas, Olympus and Lingon are traversed nearly at right angles by the still longer and vaster chain called Pindus, which stretches in a line rather west of north from the northern side of the range of Olympus : the system to which these mountains belong seems to begin with the lofty masses of greenstone comprised under the name of Mount Scardus, or Scardus, (Schardagh,) which is divided only by the narrow cleft, containing the river Drin, from the limestone of the Albanian Alps. From the southern face of Olympus, Pindus strikes off nearly southward, forming the boundary between Thessaly and Epirus, and sending forth about the 39th degree of latitude the lateral chain of Othrys,—which latter takes an easterly course, forming the southern boundary of Thessaly, and reaching the sea between Thessaly and the northern coast of Euboea. Southward of Othrys, the chain of Pindus, under the name of Tymphrestus, still continues, until another lateral chain, called Oeta, projects from it again towards the east,—forming the lofty coast immediately south of the Maliac gulf, with the narrow road of Thermopylae between the two,—and terminating at the Euboean strait. At the point of junction with Oeta, the chain of Pindus forks into two branches; one striking to the westward of south, and reaching across Aetolia, under the names of Arakynthus, Kurius, Korax, and Taphiassus, to the promontory called Antirrhion, situated on the northern side of the narrow entrance of the Corinthian gulf, over against the corresponding promontory of Rhion in Peloponnesus; the other tending south-east, and forming Parnassus, Helicon, and Kithaeron; indeed, Aegaleus and Hymettus, even down to the southernmost cape of Attica, Sunium (Sounion), may be treated as a continuance of this chain. From the eastern extremity of Oeta, also, a range of hills, inferior in height to the preceding, takes its departure in a south-easterly direction, under the various names of Knemis, Ptoon, and Teumessus. It is joined with Kithaeron by the lateral communication, ranging from west to east, called Parnes; while the celebrated Pentelikus (Pentelikon), abundant in marble quarries, constitutes its connecting link, to the south of Parnes with the chain from Kithaeron to Sunium.

From the promontory of Antirrhion, the line of mountains crosses into Peloponnesus, and stretches in a southerly direction down to the extremity of the peninsula called Taenarus, now Cape Matapan. Forming the boundary between Elis with Messenia on one side, and Arcadia with Laconia on the other, it bears the successive names of Olenus, Panachaikus, Pholoe, Erymanthus, Lykaeus, Parrbasius, and Taygetus. Another series of mountains strikes off from Kithaeron towards the south-west, constituting, under the names of Geraneia and Oneia, the rugged and lofty Isthmus of Corinth, and then spreading itself into Peloponnesus. On entering that peninsula, one of its branches tends westward along the north of Arkadia, comprising the Akrokorinthus, or citadel of Corinth, the high peak of Kyllene, the mountains of Aroanii and Lampeia, and ultimately joining Erymanthus and Pholoe,—while the other branch strikes southward towards the south-eastern cape of Peloponnesus, the formidable Cape Malea (map), or St. Angelo,—and exhibits itself under the successive names of Apesas, Artemisium, Parthenium, Parnon, Thornax, and Zarex.

From the eastern extremity af Olympus, in a direction rather to the eastward of south, stretches the range of mountains first called Ossa, and afterwards Pelion, down to the south-eastern corner of Thessaly. The long, lofty, and naked back-bone of the island of Euboea, may be viewed as a continuance both of this chain and of the chain of Othrys : the line is farther prolonged by a series of islands in the Archipelago, Andros, Tenos, Mykonos, and Naxos, belonging to the group called the Cyclades, or islands encircling the sacred centre of Delos. Of these Cyclades, others are in like manner a continuance of the chain which reaches to Cape Sunium,—Keos, Kythnos, Seriphos, and Siphnos join on to Attica, as Andros does to Euboea. And we might even consider the great island of Krete as a prolongation of the system of mountains which breasts the winds and waves at Cape Male, the island of Kythera forming the intermediate link between them. Skiathus, Skopelus, and Skyrus, to the north-east of Euboea, also mark themselves out as outlying peaks of the range comprehending Pelion and Euboea.

By this brief sketch, which the reader will naturally compare with one of the recent maps of the country, it will be seen that Greece proper is among the most mountainous territories in Europe. For although it is convenient, in giving a systematic view of the face of the country, to group the multiplicity of mountains into certain chains, or ranges, founded upon approximative uniformity of direction; yet, in point of fact, there are so many ramifications and dispersed peaks, so vast a number of hills and crags of different magnitude and elevation, that a comparatively small proportion of the surface is left for level ground. Not only few continuous plains, but even few continuous valleys, exist throughout all Greece proper. The largest spaces of level ground are seen in Thessaly, in Etolia, in the western portion of Peloponnesus, and in Boeotia; but irregular mountains, valleys frequent but isolated, land-locked basins and declivities, which often occur, but seldom last long, form the character of the country.

The islands of the Cyclades, Euboea, Attica, and Laconia, consist for the most part of micaceous schist, combined with and often covered by crystalline granular limestone. The centre and west of Peloponnesus, as well as the country north of the Corinthian gulf from the gulf of Ambrakia to the strait of Euboea, present a calcareous formation, varying in different localities as to color, consistency, and hardness, but, generally, belonging or approximating to the chalk : it is often very compact, but is distinguished in a marked manner from the crystalline limestone above mentioned. The two loftiest summits in Greece (both, however, lower than Olympus, estimated at nine thousand seven hundred feet) exhibit this formation,—Parnassus, which attains eight thousand feet, and the point of St. Elias in Taygetus, which is not less than seven thousand eight hundred feet. Clay-slate, and conglomerates of sand, lime, and clay, are found in many parts : a close and firm conglomerate of lime composes the Isthmus of Corinth : loose deposits of pebbles, and calcareous breccia occupy also some portions of the territory. But the most important and essential elements of the Grecian soil, consist of the diluvial and alluvial formations, with which the troughs and basins are filled up, resulting from the decomposition of the older adjoining rocks. In these reside the productive powers of the country, and upon these the grain and vegetables for the subsistence of the people depend. The mountain regions are to a great degree barren, destitute at present of wood or any useful vegetation, though there is reason to believe that they were better wooded in antiquity: in many parts, however, and especially in Aetolia and Akarnania, they afford plenty of timber, and in all parts, pasture for the cattle during summer, at a time when the plains are thoroughly burnt up. For other articles of food dependence must be had on the valleys, which are occasionally of singular fertility. The low ground of Thessaly, the valley of the Kephisus, and the borders of the lake Kopais, in Boeotia, the western portion of Elis, the plains of Stratus on the confines of Akarnania and Aetolia, and those near the river Pamisus in Messenia, both are now, and were in ancient times, remarkable for their abundant produce.

RIVERS OF GREECE.

Besides the scarcity of wood for fuel, there is another serious inconvenience to which the low grounds of Greece are exposed, the want of a supply of water at once adequate and regular. Abundance of rain falls during the autumnal and winter months, little or none during the summer; while the naked limestone of the numerous hills, neither absorbs nor retains moisture, so that the rain runs off as rapidly as it falls, and springs are rare. Most of the rivers of Greece are torrents in early spring, and dry before the end of the summer : the copious combinations of the ancient language, designated the winter torrent by a special and separate word. The most considerable rivers in the country are, the Peneius, which carries off all the waters of Thessaly, finding an exit into the Aegean through the narrow defile which parts Ossa from Olympus,— and the Achelous, which flows from Pindus in a south-westerly direction, separating Aetolia from Akarnania, and emptying itself into the Ionian sea: the Euenus also takes its rise at a more southerly part of the same mountain chain, and falls into the same sea more to the eastward. The rivers more to the southward are unequal and inferior. Kephisus and Asopus, in Boeotia, Alpheius, in Elis and Arcadia, Pamisus in Messenia, maintain each a languid stream throughout the summer; while the Inachus near Argos, and the Kephisus and Ilissus near Athens, present a scanty reality which falls short still more of their great poetical celebrity. Of all those rivers which have been noticed, the Achelous is by far the most important. The quantity of mud which its turbid stream brought down and deposited, occasioned a sensible increase of the land at its embouchure, within the observation of Thucydicles.

But the disposition and properties of the Grecian territory, though not maintaining permanent rivers, are favorable to the multiplication of lakes and marshes. There are numerous hollows and inclosed basins, out of which the water can find no superficial escape, and where, unless it makes for itself a subterranean passage through rifts in the mountains, it remains either as a marsh or a lake according to the time of year. In Thessaly, we find the lakes Nessonis and Boebeis; in Aetolia, between the Achelous and Euenus, Strabo mentions the lake of Trichonis, besides several other lakes, which it is difficult to identify individually, though the quantity of ground covered by lake and marsh is, as a whole, very considerable. In Boeotia, are situated the lakes Kopais, Hylike, and Harma; the first of the three formed chiefly by the river Kephisus, flowing from Parnassus on the north-west, and shaping for itself a sinuous course through the mountains of Phokis. On the north-east and east, the lake Kopais is bounded by the high land of Mount Ptoon, which intercepts its communication with the strait of Euboea. Through the limestone of this mountain, the water has either found or forced several subterraneous cavities, by which it obtains a partial proress on the other side of the rocky hill, and then flows into the strait. The Katabothra, as they were termed in antiquity, yet exist, but in an imperfect and half-obstructed condition. Even in antiquity, however, they never fully sufficed to carry off the surplus waters of the Kephisus; for the remains are still found of an artificial tunnel, pierced through the whole breadth of the rock, and with perpendicular apertures at proper intervals to let in the air from above. This tunnel — one of the most interesting remnants of antiquity, since it must date from the prosperous days of the old Orchomenus, anterior to its absorption into the Boeotian league, as well as to the preponderance of Thebes,— is now choked up and rendered useless. It may, perhaps, have been designedly obstructed by the hand of an enemy, and the scheme of Alexander the Great, who commissioned an engineer from Chalkis to reopen it, was defeated, first, by discontents in Boeotia, and ultimately by his early death.

The Katabothra of the lake Kopais, are a specimen of the phenomenon so frequent in Greece,—lakes and rivers finding for themselves subterranean passages through the cavities in the limestone rocks, and even pursuing their unseen course for a considerable distance before they emerge to the light of day. In Arcadia, especially, several remarkable examples of subterranean water communication occur; this central region of Peloponnesus presents a cluster of such completely inclosed valleys, or basins.

It will be seen from these circumstances, that Greece, considering its limited total extent, offers but little motive, and still less of convenient means, for internal communication among its various inhabitants. Each village, or township, occupying its plain with the enclosing mountains, supplied its own main wants whilst the transport of commodities by land was sufficiently difficult to discourage greatly any regular commerce with neighbors. In so far as the face of the interior country was concerned, it seemed as if nature had been disposed, from the beginning, to keep the population of Greece socially and politically disunited, —by providing so many hedges of separation, and so many boundaries, generally hard, sometimes impossible, to overleap. One special motive to intercourse, however, arose out of this very geographical constitution of the country, and its endless alternation of mountain and valley. The difference of climate and temperature between the high and low grounds is very great; the harvest is secured in one place before it is ripe in another, and the cattle find during the heat of summer shelter and pasture on the hills, at a time when the plains are burnt up. The practice of transferring them from the mountains to the plain according to the change of season, which subsists still as it did in ancient times, is intimately connected with the structure of the country, and must from the earliest period have brought about communication among the otherwise disunited villages.

GRECIAN LANDSMEN AND SEAMEN.

Such difficulties, however, in the internal transit by land, were to a great extent counteracted by the large proportion of coast and the accessibility of the country by sea. The prominences and indentations in the line of Grecian coast, are hardly less remarkable than the multiplicity of elevations and depressions which everywhere mark the surface. The shape of Peloponnesus, with its three southern gulfs, (the Argolic, Laconian, and Messenian,) was compared by the ancient geographers to the leaf of a plane-tree: the Pagasaean gulf on the eastern side of Greece, and the Ambracian gulf on the western, with their narrow entrances and considerable area, are equivalent to internal lakes : Xenophon boasts of the double sea which embraces so large a proportion of Attica, Ephorus of the triple sea, by which Boeotia was accessible from west, north, and south, — the Euboean strait, opening a long line of country on both sides to coasting navigation. But the most important of all Grecian gulfs are the Corinthian and the Saronic, washing the northern and north-eastern shores of Peloponnesus, and separated by the narrow barrier of the Isthmus of Corinth. The former, especially, lays open Aetolia, Phocis, and Boeotia, as well as the whole northern coast of Peloponnesus, to water approach. Corinth, in ancient times, served as an entrepot for the trade between Italy and Asia Minor, —goods being unshipped at Lechaeum, the port on the Corinthian gulf; and carried by land across to Cenchreae, the port on the Saronic: indeed, even the merchant vessels themselves, when not very large, were conveyed across by the same route. It was accounted a prodigious advantage to escape the necessity of sailing round Cape Malea : and the violent winds and currents which modern experience attests to prevail around that formidable promontory, are quite sufficient to justify the apprehensions of the ancient Greek merchant, with his imperfect apparatus for navigation.

It will thus appear that there was no part of Greece proper which could be considered as out of reach of the sea, while most parts of it were convenient and easy of access : in fact, the Arcadians were the only large section of the Hellenic name, (we may add the Doric, Tetrapolis, and the mountaineers along the chain of Pindus and Tymphrestus) who were altogether without a seaport. But Greece proper constituted only a fraction of the entire Hellenic world, during the historical age : there were the numerous islands, and still more numerous continental colonies, all located as independent intruders on distinct points of the coast, in the Euxine, the Aegean, the Mediterranean, and the Adriatic; and distant from each other by the space which separates Trebizond from Marseilles. All these various cities were comprised in the name Hellas, which implied no geographical continuity : all prided themselves on Hellenic blood, name, religion, and mythical ancestry. As the only communication between them was maritime, so the sea, important, even if we look to Greece proper exclusively, was the sole channel for transmitting ideas and improvements, as well as for maintaining sympathies—social, political, religious, and literary—throughout these outlying members of the Hellenic aggregate.

The ancient philosophers and legislators were deeply impressed with the contrast between an inland and a maritime city: in the former, simplicity and uniformity of life, tenacity of ancient habits, and dislike of what is new or foreign, great force of exclusive sympathy, and narrow range both of objects and ideas; in the latter, variety and novelty of sensations, expansive imagination, toleration, and occasional preference for extraneous customs, greater activity of the individual, and corresponding mutability of the state. This distinction stands prominent in the many comparisons instituted between the Athens of Pericles and the Athens of the earlier times down to Solon. Both Plato and Aristotle dwell upon it emphatically,—and the former especially, whose genius conceived the comprehensive scheme of prescribing beforehand and insuring in practice the whole course of individual thought and feeling in his imaginary community, treats maritime communication, if pushed beyond the narrowest limits, as fatal to the success and permanence of any wise scheme of education. Certain it is, that a great difference of character existed between those Greeks who mingled much in maritime affairs, and those who did not. The Arcadian may stand as a type of the pure Grecian landsman, with his rustic and illiterate habits, his diet of sweet chestnuts, barley-cakes, and pork (as contrasted with the fish which formed the chief seasoning for the bread of an Athenian,) his superior courage and endurance, his reverence for Lacedaemonian headship as an old and customary influence, his sterility of intellect and imagination, as well as his slackness in enterprise, his unchangeable rudeness of relations with the gods, which led him to scourge and prick Pan, if he came back empty-handed from the chase; while the inhabitant of Phocoea or Miletus exemplifies the Grecian mariner, eager in search of gain, active, skilful, and daring at